“An impressive season opener, last night’s concert looks set to be the first of many magnificent concerts by this local, incredibly talented company.”
(Borodin, Prokoviev, Stravinsky, November 2011, Cambridge News)

The Cam Phil nowadays makes considerable use of email, both for members and
also for sending announcements to anybody else who is interested in our
activities and forthcoming concerts.

The various Cam Phil mailing lists are all run by automated software (called
Majordomo), which frees us from what would otherwise be a
considerable administrative load. The notes on this page are intended to
explain how you can effectively manage your own subscription(s), by sending
special email messages to Majordomo. However, if you have difficulty, please
do contact the list manager at
majordomo-owner@cam-phil.org.uk.

NOTE: the email addresses here and elsewhere on the web site are
usually shown as clickable links. If you use an email application, they
should cause a new draft message to open in your application. However, if you
use webmail (such as GMail or Hotmail), this might not work properly, in which
case you should copy and paste the email address.

Joining a list (“subscribe”)

To join a list, you first need to send a blank email to the appropriate subscription address:

As an alternative to sending a blank email, you can send the instruction in
the last column above in the body of an email to
majordomo@cam-phil.org.uk.
This is particularly useful if you want to join more than one mailing list at
the same time.

When you send your initial request (using either method), Majordomo will
respond with a message containing a confirmation token: you must follow the
instructions in that message, to verify that your email address is working and
that it really was you who sent the request.
In general, any request to Majordomo requires confirmation before it can
succeed, and that confirmation is as simple as hitting reply and
sending the one-word message “accept”.
Make sure you do not change the subject line, though, otherwise Majordomo
won’t know which token you’re accepting.

You will then receive a message welcoming you to the list.

Using your password

The first time you join one of our mailing lists, you will also be sent a
password. You should keep the welcome message for future reference.

With your password, you can avoid almost all confirmation tokens. To do this,
you must use the “Majordomo command” method, with one small addition. Make
the first line of your message to majordomo@cam-phil.org.uk:

default password PASSWORD

and then type whichever other command(s) you need on separate lines
after that.

If you can read email sent to the subscribed address, but cannot send email
using it (eg. if your old email address still works, but only as a redirection
to a new address), then you can still unsubscribe, by sending the one-line
message

unsubscribe LISTNAME<your old email address>

to majordomo@cam-phil.org.uk
(use the appropriate list name, of course). You can send this message from
anywhere, provided you quote the email address you want to unsubscribe. You
must still look out for the confirmation token (which will be sent to the
old email address), and return it.

If you no longer have access to the old email address at all, then you won’t
of course be receiving any email from us. In this case, please still tell us,
so that we can update our records.

Changing your address

If you change your address, you can just unsubscribe and then re-subscribe
with your new address. It is much better, though (especially if you have
joined more than one list!) to use the single-step “changeaddr” command. To
do this, using your new address, send the one-line message

changeaddr <your old email address>

to majordomo@cam-phil.org.uk.
You must do this before your old email address is switched off, since
you need to return a confirmation token from both the old and new accounts.

If you quote your password, ie. if you send the two lines

default password PASSWORD
changeaddr <your old email address>

then the first confirmation isn’t needed, which means you don’t need to
have access to the old account, although you will still need to confirm the
new address.

Problems?

If you don’t get a reply almost immediately to your request, or when you
send in a confirmation token, then it may be that your email program has
messed up the subject line or the reply address. In particular, addresses
with the word “owner” in them are always wrong (they are intended for
contacting the list manager, or for detecting bounced messages), but some
email programs tend to choose these incorrectly when you hit reply.
See also the next point.

If you believe you have successfully subscribed, but you don’t then receive
any messages when other people have done, or if you are not seeing any
messages from Majordomo at all, then it may be due to an over-zealous
“anti-spam” filter. If you or your email provider (ISP) run any kind of
filter, you may have to tell it about the Cam Phil mailing list, otherwise any
messages you receive may be rejected or consigned to the “junk” folder. Note
that, in common with most other email lists, messages from us are sent with a
variety of “one-time” sender addresses (a method known as “VERP”), so you may
have particular difficulty if you have a filter which junks messages from
anyone who is not in your address book – there is no one single address which
you can add.

There is unfortunately nothing we can do about this at our end, and if you
cannot find a way to allow our messages through your junk filter then your
only option may be to switch to a different ISP which has a different
filtering policy. Please, however, let us know so that we can compile a list
of “list-unfriendly” ISPs to warn other people!

If you want to check that your subscription is OK, send the single word “show”
in the body of a message to
majordomo@cam-phil.org.uk.
A complete summary of everything Majordomo knows about you will be sent back
straight away (so if that reply doesn’t arrive, you definitely need to check
for a filter getting in the way!).